posted by sooyup
on
Daily trivia
There’s no mistaking the meaning of this signal which Emma or I might send to each other during a lull in the conversation - unobserved by the rest of the company, of course. Alternatively, it might be Emma that wraps her tiny fingers around one of mine to make the same sign. And if one of us strokes the other’s palm while holding hands (as we still do out of doors) it conveys the same message. These are familiar signs, with a long history. “Paddling palms and pinching fingers,” as Leontes puts it in The Winter’s Tale. Emma’s cousin Eddie was deaf mute. We met him several times a year, at Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries and the like. It wasn’t often enough to encourage us to learn BSL, but we could spell out words using the British two-handed alphabet. On buses, in cafes - even in chapel during the sermon - Emma and I would often send rude messages to one another, usually with just the initial letters of familiar words. Emma would send innocent things like, ILY, IWTKYL. I would be more likely to say IWTFY, SMYT, GYKO. And I could always tell when Emma had guessed correctly. She would blush.
There’s no mistaking the meaning of this signal which Emma or I might send to each other during a lull in the conversation - unobserved by the rest of the company, of course. Alternatively, it might be Emma that wraps her tiny fingers around one of mine to make the same sign. And if one of us strokes the other’s palm while holding hands (as we still do out of doors) it conveys the same message. These are familiar signs, with a long history. “Paddling palms and pinching fingers,” as Leontes puts it in The Winter’s Tale. Emma’s cousin Eddie was deaf mute. We met him several times a year, at Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries and the like. It wasn’t often enough to encourage us to learn BSL, but we could spell out words using the British two-handed alphabet. On buses, in cafes - even in chapel during the sermon - Emma and I would often send rude messages to one another, usually with just the initial letters of familiar words. Emma would send innocent things like, ILY, IWTKYL. I would be more likely to say IWTFY, SMYT, GYKO. And I could always tell when Emma had guessed correctly. She would blush.
